Month: May 2014

My name is John Chen and I am the vice-chair of the ASAE Trends Committee, subcommittee to the ASAE Communications Section Council. We have an exciting project we have been working on with ASAE regarding association communication trends and we want to hear from you.

If you or your association plan to, or are currently embracing one or more of these trends or if you have a strong opinion about the impact of these trends, we would love to hear from you for regarding an opportunity to be included in an upcoming Associations Now blog post.

1. Me Generation Membership With more Gen Xer’s in leadership positions, they desire completely customized membership experience. They seek a membership model that can be tailored to the exact taste of the individual; members are asserting their desire for uniqueness by demanding products that are malleable in form and customizable according to taste and lifestyle.

2. Big Brother Data Trend Traditionally, big data has been limited to companies like Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, and others. In an age where more and more things are connected, monitored, and logged, associations can now get in the game. Associations have massive amounts of information on their members from website activity, volunteer history, and event attendance tracking to name a new.

3. A Visual is Worth a Thousand Words Trend Visual-focused platforms like Instagram and Pinterest introduce the concept of photo communication. Faster and more instantly gratifying than words, photos are the next step in streamlining media.

4. Crowdsourcing 2.0 Trend In the past, associations have opened up some of their educational content for crowdsourcing. Now, a step above crowdsourcing, member-controlled innovations allow members to take part in the creation of actual products, meetings and changes to the association. This signifies a shift in the member-association dynamic, as it becomes clear the best way to ensure member satisfaction, is to give the member more control of the brand.

5. Testing Trend Most small associations have clued in to the value of quick testing years ago, with large associations lagging behind and aiming for perfection before execution. Recently, however, it seems larger associations are learning this valuable lesson the hard way, especially during the recession. With both large and small associations understanding the value of soft launches, a demand for devices, apps, or platforms that make testing easier can be observed.